Today is Election Day in Canada, and Canadians are going to the polls. Thanks to Jess Mahone, I have been following this for a while, and even have found an idol along the way (Harper). Here are links from the archives of JttR on the election if you are catching Harper fever at this late hour:
Jess' excellent primer
The Stealth Revolution begins with a no-confidence vote
The parralells between Canada today and the conservative attitude here
Debate reaction and the nonwithstanding clause

and, if you are curious, Canada is important to the US because they are our neighbor, and because of the anglosphere.

C-SPAN is going to have live coverage starting at about 9:30, and if the UPS guy shows up, I'll be watching it in my Conservative Party of Canada logo t-shirt. CBC will also be having online coverage.

I call this the "Stealth Revoultion" for several reasons. First, no one outside Canada really saw it coming, and there were doubts inside the country as to whether a stagnant Liberal Party could be dethroned. From reading a biography on Harper, (I highly recommend, and I am going have to buy, as I borrowed mine from UVM) I could see that Harper did not set out to become Prime Minister. He got started in politics, and founded the Reform Party of Canada to set things right for Alberta and the West. Regional injustices abounded, and Harper and Preston Manning started to try and set things right. It was a large grassroots movement, but I doubt many ever really considered that Harper's party could do much more than the NDP. They eventually took over the Progessive Conservative Party, shifting it to the right.

However, it was not until this election, after learning from the mistakes made in 2004 that cost them a shot at minority government, that Harper and the CPC were able to bring the ideas of common sense "Contract" conservatism to the Canadian people. What the Liberals and the Democrats don't realize is that people want solutions, not just pointing out the faults of someone else.

As for election predictions, I have been saying that a majority is likely for at least a week now. I think that many Liberals will stay home rather than vote NDP or Conservative. Because the NDP needs to draw people from the Liberals, this hurts them much more than it does the CPC. The majority plateau begins at 155 seats, and I am going to predict 150-158, but I think I am going to settle on 156. Good luck to the CPC!

Posted by Ryan S. on Monday, January 23, 2006 at 2:58 PM | Permalink |